"'Back to Home Land!' Removing the Casket of America's Unknown Soldier from the OLYMPIA, Washington, D.C."

stereograph

PHOTOGRAPHS
Keystone View Co.
USA, DC, Washington
1921-11-09
paper
overall: 3-1/2 x 7 in.; image: 3-1/8 x 6 in.

Stereograph; albumen print mounted on gray board with rounded corners; casket of the Unknown Soldier from World War I is being removed from the OLYMPIA (built 1892) after arriving in Washington, D.C., military and civilian dignitaries present; printed on left "Keystone View Company/ Manufacturers Publishers" and "COPYRIGHTED/ MADE IN U. S. A."; printed on top center "35"; printed on right "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y.,/ Chicago, Ill., London, England." printed on bottom right "23306 'Back to Home Land!' Removing the Casket/ of America's Unknown Soldier from the/ Olympia, Washington, D. C."; printed on back SERIES 75 100 200 300/ POSITION 73 98 198 298" and "23306/ AMERICA'S UNKNOWN SOLDIER/ COMES HOME TO HIS/ NATIVE SOIL/ 'The muffled drum's sad roll has beat/ The soldier's last tattoo;/ No more on Life's parade shall meet/ That brave and fallen few./ On Fame's eternal camping ground/ Their silent tents are spread/ And Glory guards, with solemn round,/ The bivouac of the dead.'/ For him, our Unknown Soldier, it is all/ over; the sadness of parting from loved/ ones, the long ocean voyage, the grind of/ the training cmaps, the weary marches to the/ front, the roar of the barrage, and then that/ last blinding flash of a descending shell which/ shattered his poor body and left him, dead/ and unknown, on the field of battle. This/ nameless hero of ours is being borne home/ with the highest honors of the Nation to/ sleep forever in the great National Cemetary/ at Arlington, Va., as the type and symbol/ of the thousands of other American lads/ similarly slain on the poppied fields of France./ His life snuffed out in the glow of youth,/ with all the future before him, he is a sacri-/ fice to the cause of his country and of human-/ ity, as were the unknown French youth who/ rests beneath the shadow of the mighty Arch/ of Triumph in Paris, and the nameless Eng-/ lish boy whose dust now mingles with that of/ the greatest men of his race under the quiet/ aisles of Westminster Abbey./ Those unknown dead of Arlington, of/ Paris and of London were sons of the com-/ mon people, the common people, whose com-/ posite impulses and sentiments give birth to/ the sentiments and the policies of their na-/ tions./ Copyright by The Keystone View Company"

2001.127.2